heart

"where's your heart at?"
you see, on saturday night i had to sit by a side door at the basketball game to make sure that no one came in through that door... everyone has to go through the main entrance and get a ticket and what-not. this, in addition to selling programs, is how we raise money for tennis. anyway, i was sitting in my spot, and this time i brought some reading along (i'm reading "velvet elvis" again). i didn't have to deal with too many people... it seems that most have gotten the hang of the fact they can only exit and not enter through that door. during halftime, an older guy was walking down the stairs and as he passed me, he looks at me and asks, "now, you'd let me in if i were out there, wouldn't you?" i kind of just smiled and laughed, saying, "well, no, we're not supposed to allow anyone in through that door." he straightened up, looked at me with this rather scary look and gave it to me: "where's your heart at? i looked at you and i thought to myself, well, she doesn't look like the duty-struck type... she'd let me in. but i guess not." and with that he walked away.
may i remind you that all of this hooplah is a result of a hypothetical situation... for crying out loud, he's already inside--what does it matter to him whether or not i'd let him in. on top of that, he'd seen me for a whole 3 seconds and managed to profile me as someone who is not "duty-struck."

side note: right now, my middle toe on my right foot is frozen, numb, and i cannot get the feeling back in it... it is bothering me quite a bit right now.

anyway, i just sat there, kind of in shock at this reprimanding this old guy gave me. and naturally, i began to think. i mean, come on, when you put the two factors of me having been reading "velvet elvis" for the past hour and of my hyper-active mind together, i am bound to think. so my mind got going... and of course, i didn't just sit there and ponder as to the anatomical location of my heart--for everyone knows it's on the right side, just above the spleen--but instead sat there and repeated that question over and over, as if to prod my heart to speak up and give me a few clues (by the way, you do know i'm joking about the anatomical location of the heart... they do teach us some stuff at college). so i sat at my post for a bit and wondered..."where's my heart at?" then my shift was over and i put the thinking on pause and walked back to the dorms, where once i got inside i resumed my thinking (you see, in this kind of cold weather we experience here, it is best to just turn your brain off as you walk through this bitter cold... for if you are at all thinking, or even aware of your surroundings, you just might realize that it is cold and consequently go crazy... hence, i took a little break from the pondering and mindlessly made my way back to noordy).

i haven't quite found an answer yet. and i don't plan on finding one anytime soon. but, i would like to share a little something that i spent some time pondering at the gate at LAX... i think it kind of fits in to "where's your heart at?" in relation to what has been on my mind... or actually what was on my mind at the gate. so, here ya go:

It's quite the concept… living in two places. It's quite another thing
trying to sort out and assign the label "home". They say "Home is where
the heart is," but what if you happen to find that your heart resides no
where? Although there are people and things that you truly love in both
places, your heart isn't content where it is at. A complete satisfaction,
a feel of contentment… although it may come across the mind here and again,
after much deeper reflection the heart realizes that there is somewhere (or
something) else that it desires. Some call this Green-Grass-Syndrome… when a
mind plays tricks on the mind to convince one's self that anywhere but here is
much greener. There is a key difference though. With this, it is the
mind that wanders and desires to be somewhere else--a much easier thing to
understand. However, a heart seeking for a home is something much more
complex, more confusing by far. It becomes clear when your mind looks at
two places, sees very green grass in both, yet there is still this feeling,
incomprehensible to the brain, saying that this place ain't it… it's not where I
am supposed to be. Although the head may be happy, the heart begs to
differ.
With this, I almost feel like being on a plane, between destinations,
is one of the best places to be. It's during travel that you are between
destinations and left without any confusion as to where you are in relation to
home and away.
Upon discovering a temporarily homeless heart, I've found that in order to find an answer to this home-heart issue, i must examine two mistakes: one, that I've actually convinced myself that I have to choose one place, right now; and two, the fact that I've simply defined home as a dwelling, shelter, location. Well, when you look at it that way, of course your head's going to get all messed up. The answer to "home" isn't merely a location that you return to at the end of the day... it is much much more complex than that. To begin, you simply just need to ask, "where's your heart at?" Fancy that--the answer is actually the question that got this whole mess started in the first place. In other words, what things, what people, what feelings, make your heart beat and get you all giddy? For example--tennis. I am no where
near home if there isn't any tennis to be played. And family and friends--there's no way I am going to feel at home if I can't keep some sort of contact with my family and friends. By the way… don't pay attention to the order in which I just put my examples… it's just tennis was an obvious one so it came to mind first. Anyway.
Do you see how looking at this idea of "home" first as something detached from physical location actually opens up life to have multiple, different dwellings while still having a home for the heart. Of course, things get a bit more complex when you begin to talk about locations and geography as things that you love… for example, Calvin. I love being at Calvin, living at Calvin… thus making Calvin a "dwelling home" and a "heart home." so, where that fits in to the rest of this stuff… I have absolutely no idea. And after thinking for 10 minutes, I still have no idea. Hmmm… guess I'll just have to leave that for now. Let's just work on things a little at a time for now.

And right there at the end of that sentence they called seating area 2... meaning i needed to close my computer and get on the plane. and, i don't know why the spacing is all wierd... sorry.
So i guess the task at hand is just finding what i love, eh? And i am pretty sure that that's what this time in college is all about that... well, that and getting an education... i'd say that's pretty important too.
lengthy post... i was due for a long one... it's been a while.

so... two more days of interim... then i am off on wednesday for interim break... during which i will spend the first half at my home in holland where i stayed this summer (see, it's fun to have many "homes!") ... and then it's back at calvin for the calvin vs hope game!!!!

3 to 5 inches of snow tonight... i'm so loving this mass amounts of snow... pretty amazing.

ciao

oh, and i got the feeling back in my toe... much better